July 21 - Wessex Rose and Cosgrove Canal Festival

Most of today was spent cruising the canal...

Today's cruising took us over two aqueducts, the Grafton Street Aqueduct just outside of Milton Keyes (this one crosses a 4 lane road)...

and the Iron Trunk Aqueduct over the Great Ouse River.  This one was built in 1811 and is still in use today.

At one point we noticed a lot of festively decorated boats clustered in one section along the canal.  

It turned out that they were holding a canal side festival.  Most of the merchant shops were on boats moored along the canal. They were also trying to raise money for the group that did volunteer work along the canals.  As part of the fundraising the were holding the boats "for ransom" as they went through the locks...that is they worked the locks in hopes of a donation.

Elevation of the Grand Union Canal

We all took a walk along the canal to window shop the shop boats. 

After lunch we headed off on some of the longest pounds (long stretches of water between locks).  We had very few locks today.

We moored just below a series of locks near Stoke Bruener.  This was our longest (distance wise) day of cruising, covering approximately 10 miles.  Since there were so few locks this allowed us to cover more distance in less time.

Our afternoon snack of Cream Tea (Tea and Scones)

The evenings have been particularly lovely and all of us have been spending much of the evening before dinner sitting on the sun deck and enjoying the peace and quiet and the friendly conversation.